Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to everywhere. I am your host, Daniel Shaffler.
Speaker 1: The commandment for the week thou shalt be prepared for anything.
Speaker 1: I have this theory about travel. If you prepare yourself
Speaker 1: for just about anything, you can let go of pesky
Speaker 1: expectations and you could just let everywhere unfold. And yes,
Speaker 1: it does in my case, for better or for much better.
Speaker 1: And this is how I felt in Burma, or with
Speaker 1: some people call it these days Mainmar. I deliberately didn't
Speaker 1: fill my schedule with too many activities. I try to
Speaker 1: have no thoughts about this begealing place. I even re
Speaker 1: sisted to think back to Burmese Days, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite or Will books. I just wanted to be open
Speaker 1: to this unexplored country and whatever it wanted to show me.
Speaker 1: Some local food, perhaps hikes in the Grand Mountains, and
Speaker 1: hopefully some pauses in between to meditate. With a recent
Speaker 1: change of power and some very helpful international attention, Burma
Speaker 1: is finding itself somewhere fascinatingly new, and perhaps it may
Speaker 1: even be totally reborn. The country's hope is now riding
Speaker 1: on its lauded hero and freedom fighter San Suki, recipient
Speaker 1: of the Nobel Peace Prize. But of course this hope
Speaker 1: is precarious, to say the least. Perhaps the State Counselor,
Speaker 1: which is really a Prime Minister, Sansuki is now caught
Speaker 1: in a wild crossfire where the facts aren't crystal Conceivably,
Speaker 1: the world should be giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: But then again, power does all kinds of crazy things
Speaker 1: to people. Could she have done more? Almost certainly, it's
Speaker 1: not really imaginable that she couldn't. But how much of
Speaker 1: this genocide, as the United Nations dumped it was or
Speaker 1: is out of her hands in control? And if she
Speaker 1: takes a hard line, could she once again see the
Speaker 1: country fall into military rule? I'm none the less of.
Speaker 1: And then there's the persecution of the Hinga people in
Speaker 1: the north who have been forced to flee to Bangladesh.
Speaker 1: Burma at this very time is a complicated and partly
Speaker 1: dark place, but so was South Africa when Nelson Mandela
Speaker 1: came into power. And as I said, there is always hope.
Speaker 1: Boma has erected their very own symbol of change. But
Speaker 1: this adjustment has not come without a cost to many lives.
Speaker 1: Into the heavily adjusted expectations of the improvement of a
Speaker 1: growing economy. Pausing to think whether your political views should
Speaker 1: dictate your holiday plans. Well, here's your prompt. How does
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community feel going to a country like Grune
Speaker 1: where it's punishable by death to be gay? And what
Speaker 1: about someone of a certain race or religion who no
Speaker 1: longer feels welcome in America? How do they feel about
Speaker 1: coming here? Hold onto that don't for just a minute
Speaker 1: while I bring on my next interview with Shavo a
Speaker 1: Digion the basis from the band System of a Down,
Speaker 1: who also has the marijuana and CBD brand twenty two brand.
Speaker 1: When I tour, I like, I used to hardly see
Speaker 1: the place. It would be like, play this show, have
Speaker 1: a quick day, and then you're out. It's just recently,
Speaker 1: like the last maybe four years five years where I've
Speaker 1: been touring, and I'm like, wow, I've been missing out
Speaker 1: on like seeing these countries. So it's like I'll wake
Speaker 1: up at six am. Before also, I had other issues.
Speaker 1: I would be drinking, I'd be doing other stuff, so
Speaker 1: I'd be falling sleep at four or five o'clock. By
Speaker 1: the time I'm up by one or two, I'm already
Speaker 1: you know, by over and there's a show. So now
Speaker 1: you know I'm not doing any of that, so boom,
Speaker 1: I'm up, let's go. I go work out first and
Speaker 1: then I go see the city. That's the thing. Now
Speaker 1: My rule is if I travel to whatever place for business,
Speaker 1: I have to add a little playtime. Like it's the rule.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when people are like, oh, there's no time,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I wish I made that rule for
Speaker 1: myself earlier. You know what I mean. I need to
Speaker 1: do my great bro, any influence is good influence for me,
Speaker 1: you know when it comes to like culture, you know,
Speaker 1: gaining culture as I love that. How um, you were
Speaker 1: born in Armenia and your family came over in seventy nights.
Speaker 1: By forty year anniversary, we just had a family reunion
Speaker 1: on Saturday where the clan on my dad's side mostly,
Speaker 1: but I'm talking about my dad's cousins. Like everyone. There
Speaker 1: was like thirty people that moved from but we moved.
Speaker 1: The thing was like the borders were closed in seventy nights,
Speaker 1: so we had to move to Green for the Moscow
Speaker 1: then then Rome we were in room. I remember that
Speaker 1: was five years old, so I was in Rome to
Speaker 1: become as refugees become citizens, and then we were able
Speaker 1: to come. We moved to Queens and I was gonna
Speaker 1: be coaster, but then my mom's side kind of a
Speaker 1: few people that came with my mom stayed in Queens
Speaker 1: and I was in Queen's. My dad's side moved to
Speaker 1: l A, so my dad had to go with his monks.
Speaker 1: My dad dad passed away before I was born, so
Speaker 1: he was the man of the house. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: leave his mom alone. So there was a gap for
Speaker 1: like a couple of months, and then my mom moved
Speaker 1: us there because I wasn't gonna be raised without a dad.
Speaker 1: That was which God bless her for that, so I can.
Speaker 1: I love my family. Yeah, so I was a Hollywood kid.
Speaker 1: I thirteen thirty six Kingsley Drive, Boom. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: that address because that's the first address I was actually
Speaker 1: like representing, you know, like I mean, the lots of
Speaker 1: Armenians in Los Angeles. It's like a big community. I mean,
Speaker 1: my friend Eliza, who's Armenian, talks about it all the time.
Speaker 1: Huge at the time, though it wasn't so huge. And
Speaker 1: it's funny that the street I grew up on is
Speaker 1: now in a community called Little Armenia, But it wasn't
Speaker 1: Little Arminia back then. It was just a little nothing,
Speaker 1: little night. It was a little Hollywood boarded. My parents
Speaker 1: worked over nine to five. It was like eight. My
Speaker 1: dad drove a lunch truck, so he would get up
Speaker 1: at like four am, be at work by five, so
Speaker 1: you can get the breakfast hours. But isn't this this
Speaker 1: is the immigrant experience, right, like this is the thing
Speaker 1: that one bedroom apartment. Until I was fifteen or fourteen
Speaker 1: and just grinding. I saw my parents grinding, and I
Speaker 1: just grew. My Grandma raised me mostly there, you know when,
Speaker 1: because she was the one watching me when my parents
Speaker 1: went around. But I was in the street. Man, I
Speaker 1: was skateboarding. I was skateboarding, and I grew up around
Speaker 1: you know ms that gangster drown. My street was on
Speaker 1: Kingsley and Fountain, so that's where it all started. So
Speaker 1: I would see it and I was. I was inspired.
Speaker 1: I was I wanted to be I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I really at some point I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: part of having a posse this. But they wouldn't. It
Speaker 1: was like they knew I was that kid that was
Speaker 1: a skater and that he wasn't a bad kid. I
Speaker 1: was a good kid that kept me out. Like there
Speaker 1: was brawls going and get involved, and they pushed me
Speaker 1: aside and they would like take a knife or whatever
Speaker 1: a bat and I would just would be why watching this,
Speaker 1: I would see it. Thank God, knock on wood that
Speaker 1: that happened. And so yeah, that's how it happened. And
Speaker 1: I just got I learned, like you know, the Chop
Speaker 1: Suey video was made at a motel that was down
Speaker 1: the street from my street off of Sunset in Kingsley.
Speaker 1: This is about toxicity. The whole album was about like
Speaker 1: l A and all the like the bad things and
Speaker 1: the good things and how people like learned and I
Speaker 1: learned all that stuff. I saw homeless people for the
Speaker 1: first time there. I saw drugs. I saw there. I
Speaker 1: didn't do any but I saw it happened right right
Speaker 1: in my I had a parking lot and there was
Speaker 1: homeless people doing heroin and there I would see that,
Speaker 1: you know. So we went back to that motel and
Speaker 1: they gave it to us for a day and we
Speaker 1: shot the Chop Suey video. Crazy right, So every time
Speaker 1: I watched that video it's not just a video. It's
Speaker 1: like nostalgia. We have to go back to the Armenian
Speaker 1: pond as the child in Armenia. Tell me what that
Speaker 1: was like. My memory is not as good as it
Speaker 1: would because it was I was five years old. I
Speaker 1: remember snow, a lot of snows that play in the
Speaker 1: snow there, and it was snow in Armenia because we're
Speaker 1: a mountain this area, you know. And I remember my family,
Speaker 1: and I remember friends, and I remember where I lived
Speaker 1: and when my grandma lived. Everything else I think I
Speaker 1: know from pictures and then i'll like my mom will
Speaker 1: show a picture and the memory of that picture would
Speaker 1: come up, of like what happened before and after that picture.
Speaker 1: But like I said, most you know, you usually remember
Speaker 1: after four or five years old better. And that's how
Speaker 1: I kind of know if I was if it happened
Speaker 1: to me before five, the yeah, I'm like in Armenia,
Speaker 1: and then I'm not. And then I'm traveling at five
Speaker 1: years old, I'm traveling from like one country to another,
Speaker 1: not knowing the language. Memory. That's crazy. In therapy, they
Speaker 1: tell you a move at a young age is the
Speaker 1: second most traumatic thing that can happen to you. One
Speaker 1: is death and two is a big move. Dude. I
Speaker 1: move countries and not just one. I went from one
Speaker 1: and then I got in Rome and then I at
Speaker 1: that time year five years old, this is home now,
Speaker 1: all sudden, No Queen's okay, this is home now, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Hollywood, and that was home, that became home,
Speaker 1: and that was you know that, that is my home.
Speaker 1: How I see it because I learned a lot there. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's trauma, but it's magic. It's magic because you're five.
Speaker 1: So yes, it's traumatic traumatic magic. Great little friend, like
Speaker 1: a traumatic magic. Someone forget magic realism. We're going on
Speaker 1: traumatic magic realistic. Okay, we're gonna do something with that.
Speaker 1: Yes we have so tap into that magic, like do
Speaker 1: you bring it into your music? Do you bring it
Speaker 1: into your life? I must have it, must have gotten
Speaker 1: and it brings a lot out of imagine not knowing
Speaker 1: a language and being put And I've never been away
Speaker 1: from my parents because they've always been close, because I've
Speaker 1: been traveling and so and I'm an only child. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a brother or sister, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I have to go to a public kindergarten and I
Speaker 1: remember talking to my mom and Arminia one second looking away,
Speaker 1: my mom's gone, and there's this American lady going, come
Speaker 1: have a seat, and I'm like, uh huh, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? You know, totally not prepared and just having
Speaker 1: the trauma of like being abandoned. That's how I felt
Speaker 1: in kindergarten. I mean most kids probably feel that way
Speaker 1: in the mom's leading like this is a kid that
Speaker 1: is new to the country and new to the language,
Speaker 1: new to the culture, new to the people, new to everything,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was like jumping in an ocean
Speaker 1: not knowing how to swim and go, okay, let me
Speaker 1: start with the doggy paddle, and I think I'm by
Speaker 1: six seven, I was doing the breaststroke. Look at me, now,
Speaker 1: that's great. How did you like the Armenian genocide? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you think about that? Well, here's what happened
Speaker 1: after that. My parents did some thinking and there was
Speaker 1: an Armenian school in Hollywood called alex Peleebo's and it
Speaker 1: was pretty close to where we lived, where I grew up.
Speaker 1: So they had made some money. They had gotten jobs,
Speaker 1: so they and make some money. So they instead of
Speaker 1: putting that money away for a house one day investment.
Speaker 1: They invested in me and they put the money into schools.
Speaker 1: It was more than the rent to go to a
Speaker 1: private school, so I did that and it made it easier.
Speaker 1: The Armenian school reminded me where I come from and
Speaker 1: my culture and my past, and that's where I started
Speaker 1: learning more about the army and genocide. My parents never
Speaker 1: told me about the army and genocide. Got five years old,
Speaker 1: you know, and so I'm like, you tell your kid,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, your people were destroyed less
Speaker 1: than seventy years old, you know, ago here and and um,
Speaker 1: that's why you don't know. You don't have a family tree,
Speaker 1: you know. I I found out I don't have a
Speaker 1: family tree because they were all destroyed. That's crazy, right,
Speaker 1: So that became a thing that I always wanted to
Speaker 1: tell people about. I just got lucky that I joined
Speaker 1: a band and started a band with three other Armenians,
Speaker 1: and that became a kind of a mission for a second,
Speaker 1: because at the time, no one even knew what an
Speaker 1: Armenian was, none less knowing about the genocide, right, but
Speaker 1: it took four guys to talk about it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: through the years growing up, every year nine fifteen was
Speaker 1: brought up on every April and every other day around April,
Speaker 1: and then there's the big marches in Hollywood, and that
Speaker 1: was a part of that a lot of times. And
Speaker 1: it made a thing part of my life. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like imagine having a past like that and people
Speaker 1: not recognizing that it is. It wasn't just the fact
Speaker 1: that had happened. It was the fact that the world
Speaker 1: didn't recognize it as a genocide, or as a holocaust,
Speaker 1: or as anything they looked at as casualties of the war.
Speaker 1: What were can night? Our army wasn't part of the war.
Speaker 1: We weren't We weren't fighting anybody. They came and attacked
Speaker 1: us and killed our people at night. They took the
Speaker 1: the scholars and the men, the strong, the priests, the heads,
Speaker 1: the politicians, took them and then told the women and
Speaker 1: children were saving you. We're gonna take you away from this.
Speaker 1: And as they walked, they rape and pillaged and murdered
Speaker 1: and awful things. I don't even talk about it. So
Speaker 1: this lee, learning this at a young age, it's instill
Speaker 1: some craziness in you, right, like, wow, this occurred to
Speaker 1: our people. My great grandma was in there. My great
Speaker 1: grandpa's were in there. That happened to them insane. So
Speaker 1: um fast forward the band. It was our when we
Speaker 1: met up. It was something we all had in the
Speaker 1: back of our minds. It's always there, it's always and
Speaker 1: it was like, let's make it more of you know,
Speaker 1: known to people that this happened to our people. Let's
Speaker 1: just talk about it more. We wrote a song about it,
Speaker 1: and when they asked about the song, we talked about
Speaker 1: it and then we just kind of it became a thing.
Speaker 1: Best reward was on our first tour, we were playing
Speaker 1: Texas and we're in RV, so no security people could
Speaker 1: come and knock on the r V door. Here you
Speaker 1: So it was a kid and his dad. Kid was
Speaker 1: I couldn't be older than thirteen or fourteen, and he
Speaker 1: asked us to sign a history report that he wrote
Speaker 1: on the army and genocide and it was because he
Speaker 1: heard it happened. It was not in anywhere Indes textbooks,
Speaker 1: and he learned of it from us from the song pluck,
Speaker 1: and he went and he did research on it, find
Speaker 1: out wrote this thing are a plus on it, and
Speaker 1: his dad was proud of his dad brought him to us. Saying,
Speaker 1: good for you guys to bring my awareness to my son,
Speaker 1: who he would never have learned that if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for you guys. We imagine that we did pictures with
Speaker 1: the dad and it was like, but no amount of
Speaker 1: Grammys concluding hell, that's the point. So for me, like,
Speaker 1: the thing that I tap into on my show is
Speaker 1: that only through travel are you able to really see
Speaker 1: these things, because otherwise it's just in theory. You need
Speaker 1: to go to Armania to feel what they're feelings, or
Speaker 1: else you would know people here out of touch our
Speaker 1: Meanians here don't know what's going on over there. They
Speaker 1: only know what they're seeing on our mean and tell
Speaker 1: on the Armenian channels or what they're reading on. But
Speaker 1: you know, all that's skewed. Everything is skewed, all medious.
Speaker 1: How crazy is the news outside of America? He is
Speaker 1: totally different than when I'm there. I finally getting news
Speaker 1: around the world. I find out what's happening here. I
Speaker 1: find out what's happening there. People we would never countries
Speaker 1: that we don't talk about in America are talked about
Speaker 1: over there. There exists. There are people in the world
Speaker 1: we only get told about specific countries, or this happening there,
Speaker 1: this happened in Irand, this happened in Afghanistan, This happening
Speaker 1: irand just happening. Okay, what about the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ship going on there too. You
Speaker 1: could tell us about that too. I'm not saying don't
Speaker 1: tell us abouty around and Afghanistan. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: news out there that we don't hear about. So I
Speaker 1: would love to inspire people to travel, not only to Paris, Italy, China.
Speaker 1: I want you to go to places like Armenia, in
Speaker 1: places like Wow, you're right though, that's crazy, but who
Speaker 1: would But it's your life, you know. It's like most
Speaker 1: people when they have the chance to travel there there Okay,
Speaker 1: the majority of the world doesn't travel as much as
Speaker 1: you do, so they don't get the opportunity or of
Speaker 1: me to do that, because when they get the chance
Speaker 1: to travel, they're like, Oh, we heard of this place
Speaker 1: that's so popular and big, I'm gonna go there. Like
Speaker 1: when I told Jicavo, You're like, I'm not gonna hold
Speaker 1: that again. I get it, because there's so many better
Speaker 1: places to be. What I feel is that travel is
Speaker 1: the thing that taps you into humanity. It's such an
Speaker 1: easy way in whether you're in Carbo you can do
Speaker 1: it at the result, or whether you're going to Armania.
Speaker 1: You can go to Carbo and speak to your barista,
Speaker 1: the guy who's serving Mexican. You could speak to that
Speaker 1: person and be like, oh wait, his a little way
Speaker 1: into the country that I may not get in Carbo
Speaker 1: because it's very commercial. Yeah, I mean it was the fireworks,
Speaker 1: see what I mean. But I like, I really are
Speaker 1: so right where you're people to travel with more of
Speaker 1: that and speak and learn from people. That's what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like I want to go to Armania and speak
Speaker 1: to people and understand that experience because it's not on
Speaker 1: the tourist hotspots right Like it's but there's the responsibility,
Speaker 1: So let's use effort to do that. It's a gaining
Speaker 1: culture from people, That's what it is. And it's like
Speaker 1: but it's effort. And like I said before, most people
Speaker 1: when they're traveling, they wanna you know, not everyone's thinking
Speaker 1: to do that. Okay, So how do we inspire them
Speaker 1: to make a little more by talking about places and
Speaker 1: talking about like what you know and what you've seen
Speaker 1: and that might make someone who's listening be like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to go see that and do that, and
Speaker 1: you are you're you're doing it by what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now. This is what we're doing. Thanks, that's happening.
Speaker 1: We're doing we're doing it right now. Because you can't
Speaker 1: make someone do it, but you can make someone kind
Speaker 1: of envious of you because you can't do it, and
Speaker 1: then make me when they got the minute of they
Speaker 1: if they have the dollar and they can totally go
Speaker 1: because it takes money and time. That's it. You have
Speaker 1: a little bit extra money, you have a little bit
Speaker 1: extra time, you could do what you what you're saying,
Speaker 1: which is so amazing though. I love that. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be traveling soon, which I'm not gonna I can't
Speaker 1: talk about yet, but I'm looking forward to doing that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to play, but I'm also looking forward those days.
Speaker 1: You have to promise me that you will. Okay, are
Speaker 1: you kidding me not? I'll send you to I'll call
Speaker 1: your text you. I want to know a little bit
Speaker 1: about travel with the band a little more. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've done how many countries, Like you've traveled everywhere a
Speaker 1: lot I haven't counted how many we've been everywhere. Especially
Speaker 1: in the beginning, we would go to the obscure places,
Speaker 1: like when we went to Greece, we'd go to not
Speaker 1: just Athens, we'd go not just to Milan. But we
Speaker 1: hit up smaller regions where maybe the pay wasn't so much,
Speaker 1: but we would still go to get the exposure. Now
Speaker 1: it's more about hitting a mass you know where I
Speaker 1: missed playing the little shows in those little cities instead
Speaker 1: of playing the big ones. Um I remember getting lost
Speaker 1: in Tokyo with my outfit on about to get on stage,
Speaker 1: so I walked downstairs. Um I had just started djaying
Speaker 1: at that time. It was and the club, you know
Speaker 1: how in Tokyo and most of Japan, in the major
Speaker 1: cities like Osaka, because there's no land, so it's built
Speaker 1: like this, right, you know, up and down like a
Speaker 1: mall is like in the building and you go in
Speaker 1: the basement and then you go in like twenty stories up.
Speaker 1: And the club was in a building like that, and
Speaker 1: it was like offices a club stores. There was like
Speaker 1: a hi fi shop downstairs that had to roll in
Speaker 1: five oh five. They had it at a lot cheaper
Speaker 1: than America, you know, and I still we hadn't made
Speaker 1: money yet, you know. It was we haven't made a penny.
Speaker 1: So I was like, guys, because we had we didn't
Speaker 1: have a day off there either, so to play the
Speaker 1: show and go to somewhere else. So I had put
Speaker 1: on my clothes, like my outfit to get on stage.
Speaker 1: At the time, we wore a lot of makeup and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I went downstairs and I bought it. And I
Speaker 1: remember I had to go because I didn't have my
Speaker 1: passport to get the the duty free right. So I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the hotel it was right down
Speaker 1: the street, and gonna get the passport and I'm come
Speaker 1: right back. Ran at the hotel, got out of the hotel,
Speaker 1: didn't know this direction to go to, and it all
Speaker 1: looks the same, and here I am. No one knows
Speaker 1: I've left the building. They didn't know. I went back
Speaker 1: to the hotel. And imagine this guy wearing red shirts
Speaker 1: and a white beater, makeup on his face, bald with
Speaker 1: a long go teare walking around the streets to Tokyo
Speaker 1: where it's packed, and I'm asking people and everyone's avoiding me.
Speaker 1: It was like Japanese. They're so polite, but they're like
Speaker 1: they're getting the eye contact and then going like this
Speaker 1: and walking away, you know, like help, help. And then
Speaker 1: at some point I just sat down. I remember someone
Speaker 1: from the club finding me and running me upstairs. That
Speaker 1: wasn't the crazy story, but it's the story that's the
Speaker 1: sweet story. Yeah. Well, thanks for spending at a time
Speaker 1: with me in studio. My pleasure. Yeah, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Let's take a break to hear from our
Speaker 1: sponsors and we'll be right back with more travel from everywhere.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sticking around. Let's hop back to Burma for
Speaker 1: a moment. Bordering the brawny China, India and Thailand, it's
Speaker 1: taken Burma an extensive time to start, like seeing some
Speaker 1: of their muscles. With over a hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: ethnic groups, the Republic of the Union of Mainmar has
Speaker 1: been a place of turmoil in the last few decades,
Speaker 1: with its military rule, blocked bank sanctions from the US
Speaker 1: and a serious halt on almost all tourism, but also
Speaker 1: in the economic sphere, Mainmar sold itself short to its
Speaker 1: neighboring markets and is now fired up to take back
Speaker 1: the reins from manufacturing of machinery and equipment to the
Speaker 1: thing I love most intelligent tourism. Now, with the country
Speaker 1: finally making its debut, tourism is steadily increasing by as
Speaker 1: much as eighteen percent according to the Ministry of Tourism
Speaker 1: last year. Mainmar is writing on what the travel industry
Speaker 1: loves to call in parentheses authentic experiences. And as much
Speaker 1: as I roll my eyes at statements like that, Mainmar
Speaker 1: is decidedly different. As you arrive, you meet locals that
Speaker 1: somehow don't see you as a tourist, but actually as
Speaker 1: a potential friend. Every street corner seemed to offer me that,
Speaker 1: So perhaps I was onto something here. The country is
Speaker 1: oddly receptive to just uncharted adventures, unspoiled, from the heritage
Speaker 1: sites in the cities of Yangon in Mandalay to the
Speaker 1: forest and hills in the north of the country where
Speaker 1: I went on some slow hikes, and right down to
Speaker 1: the white beaches that remain empty for miles and miles
Speaker 1: in the south. The low cost airline industry has also
Speaker 1: taken hold here, with six new airlines starting in the
Speaker 1: last few years, and then, of course, the brand new
Speaker 1: phone networks and semi solid internet connections aiding growth. For
Speaker 1: the first time, cell phones are available to ordinary ARYUS
Speaker 1: citizens to purchase, whereas previously it was reserved for commercial
Speaker 1: use only. The endless posters from telecommunications companies are strewn
Speaker 1: all over Yangon from the airport right into the city center.
Speaker 1: On my first trip there, as I arrived, the country
Speaker 1: received their first batch of SIM cards giving access to
Speaker 1: the Internet. As I walked around town, people were lining
Speaker 1: up to buy them. People were finding out for the
Speaker 1: first time what Facebook was. I wondered, how good or
Speaker 1: how terrible this will turn out for them. Some cards
Speaker 1: used to be thousands of dollars, only the very rich
Speaker 1: could afformed them and rent them. Now, finally some cards
Speaker 1: are cheap, and with the simple world connections streaming, albeit slowly,
Speaker 1: the country, with more than sixty million people, can finally
Speaker 1: ask bigger questions about freedom of speech. With beautiful Buddhist
Speaker 1: temples still fully intact and hundreds of solid gold pagodas
Speaker 1: scattered across the country, the cultural richness invites tourists with
Speaker 1: inexpensive prices from food to lodging. Can you believe the
Speaker 1: insta scammers haven't descended on this place? Maybe we should
Speaker 1: encourage them to approach this whole country differently. I'm open
Speaker 1: to suggestions here. Tricking around Kyokemare, in the northeast of
Speaker 1: the country, growth is evident, although there are no tourists.
Speaker 1: The dirt flawned cafes are filled with locals reading the
Speaker 1: regional newspapers and slowly watching YouTube videos on their brand
Speaker 1: new smartphones. The sweet milky teas are passed along with
Speaker 1: the phones around the cafe and the men, but they're
Speaker 1: rouge beetle juice into the dusty streets. Hundreds of brand
Speaker 1: new bikes shine as they speed through the little village,
Speaker 1: an obvious sign of growth. And all this exciting new blood.
Speaker 1: There was this one cafe that had a dozen computer monitors,
Speaker 1: and at every single one of them sat a young monk,
Speaker 1: maybe aged ten or so, clothed in pink robes, playing
Speaker 1: computer games, watching YouTube videos, or befriending people from across
Speaker 1: the planet on Instagram. The line snaked out of store fronts,
Speaker 1: and people's excitement was washing down the streets, and I
Speaker 1: was doing broth tastings from street vendor to street vendor,
Speaker 1: each with a different family recipe. Watching this amazing thing
Speaker 1: happened in the meantime, Bohmer quickly became my food heaven.
Speaker 1: No photographs allowed set the street vendors. It made me
Speaker 1: smile with such delight. So here's the menu. There was mohinga,
Speaker 1: a fish broth with rice noodles, chickpeas and splashed with
Speaker 1: turmeric and lemongrass, and to this day it is still
Speaker 1: my great obsession. And then, of course the tea leaf
Speaker 1: salad made with fermented tea leaves, nuts, lime cabbage. A
Speaker 1: bitter smile of a dish. My guide Mosett told me
Speaker 1: as he tucked into his bowl of tea leaf salad
Speaker 1: that he thinks that people from rural areas are nicer
Speaker 1: than the people from the cities. They are honest, he said,
Speaker 1: and friendly, and they live away from greed, and that's
Speaker 1: why they are so special. He takes a small number
Speaker 1: of tourists into the wilderness near the village that he
Speaker 1: was born in and encourages them to meditate whilst tracking.
Speaker 1: Before becoming a guide, like so many Burmese boys, he
Speaker 1: was a monk and received his free education and ink
Speaker 1: language skills at a Buddhist center in the forest. He
Speaker 1: told me that men Mars people remain religious in the
Speaker 1: most charming and engaging way. Their temples are cozy, each
Speaker 1: one almost like a little neighborhood onto itself. Buddhists go
Speaker 1: to their temples not only to worship, but also for
Speaker 1: afternoon naps and casual gatherings over tea. Of course, that
Speaker 1: is exactly what I had in mind too, a new religion.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the way of life for Meanmar people is hard,
Speaker 1: it seems to me. They have to struggle each day
Speaker 1: to survive. But somehow there seems to be a contentment.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this hope their new prime minister has brought has
Speaker 1: changed things. In the villages five hours walk from the
Speaker 1: nearest town, life is uncomplicated for its inhabitants. Mornings start
Speaker 1: at four am when the cattle are released and the
Speaker 1: smells of open fire cooking start. They wafts from inside
Speaker 1: their wooden homes. Locals cook their national dish La pete,
Speaker 1: a mixture of pickled tea leaves, roasted nuts, green chilies,
Speaker 1: sometimes dried shrimp, and beat a larva with vegetables. And
Speaker 1: they topped this off with plenty of fresh lime. And
Speaker 1: here the customers to share it with anyone that comes
Speaker 1: into your home, which is of course what I did.
Speaker 1: I went into everyone's homes. I slept on their sheepskin rugs,
Speaker 1: and since I was unable to speak the language, I
Speaker 1: just kept smiling from ear to ear all the time
Speaker 1: like an idiot. As I was understanding more about the
Speaker 1: gorgious country, I discovered that one of the government's plans
Speaker 1: is to open up restricted areas and allow some selective
Speaker 1: tourism to venture in. With the world hungry for new
Speaker 1: destinations and explorers wanting to find this new frontier as
Speaker 1: we should with the madness of over tourism, it is
Speaker 1: perhaps Burma that holds the right golden key, with the
Speaker 1: correct attitude, who wants tourism a high quality approach and
Speaker 1: not allowing for a destruction of all this beauty. Burma
Speaker 1: might be the next paradise. Let's see what the very
Speaker 1: near future holds. It's funny. I put down my smartphone
Speaker 1: and prepared myself for just about anything and everything as
Speaker 1: the country was picking up their smartphone one at a time.
Speaker 1: That's kiss Smith. I'm in Toronto, the great city of Canada,
Speaker 1: and I'm with my new friends Aaron and Katie, who
Speaker 1: also have a podcast called al Packing My Bags. We
Speaker 1: talk about ideas of bringing attention to the border and
Speaker 1: how you really can almost not prepare for anything. I
Speaker 1: just flew in from New York. We're in Toronto. We're
Speaker 1: at the gorgeous library downtown, and I'm with my new
Speaker 1: friend Aaron, who has an amazing show called I'll Pack
Speaker 1: in My Bags. Yes, I flew to Toronto to come
Speaker 1: and hang out with you because I love your show
Speaker 1: and because I thank your super smart and very nice,
Speaker 1: and I love the Canucks. So what can I say?
Speaker 1: The feeling is very, very mutual. So thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I think we need to stop
Speaker 1: by giving people a little idea of what you do
Speaker 1: and how you do travel differently. Sure, I have been
Speaker 1: traveling since I was really young, and I would say
Speaker 1: that it's been a journey in learning about myself travel.
Speaker 1: As much as it's been like literally a journey around
Speaker 1: the world, it's also been a journey and learning who
Speaker 1: I am, gaining confidence in myself, and becoming empowered in
Speaker 1: a way that I definitely wasn't when I was younger.
Speaker 1: And so the way that I've thought about travel has
Speaker 1: really evolved the more that I've traveled, and I think
Speaker 1: in my later age, I became more critical of travel
Speaker 1: and the way that we travel, and I've in recent
Speaker 1: years been trying to challenge that in a way that
Speaker 1: I didn't when I was younger. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I was really into the like oh yes, let's stay
Speaker 1: in the party hostel and like go up for beers
Speaker 1: till four in the morning. And now I'm more about
Speaker 1: slow travel two places that aren't on top ten lists.
Speaker 1: And I like to observe and think about identity a
Speaker 1: lot as I travel, and that's a lot of what
Speaker 1: the podcast that we host is about. It's about challenging
Speaker 1: people to think about the world through a lens that
Speaker 1: isn't their own. So, for example, like I live the
Speaker 1: world as assist gender white woman, and that impact the
Speaker 1: way that I travel in the the experiences that I
Speaker 1: have as I travel, And through this podcast, we try
Speaker 1: to talk to people to find out how our experiences
Speaker 1: differ from theirs. This is why we're friends, this is why.
Speaker 1: This is the exact reason why I adored you from
Speaker 1: first listen. I'm so glad. I'm always looking for people
Speaker 1: that are doing things differently. They are staying away from
Speaker 1: the list that appeals to me in a way that
Speaker 1: that sits deep in my heart. Your belief system and
Speaker 1: my belief system touch each other, and I think the
Speaker 1: tricky part about that is it does form part of
Speaker 1: a little bubble that you and I are in. We
Speaker 1: live in in a tiny little existence where you try
Speaker 1: and reaffirm your beliefs around every corner, and travel has
Speaker 1: this amazing ability to take you out of that, to
Speaker 1: show you, Oh, let me challenge my beliefs, let me
Speaker 1: throw out these ideas and start again. And sometimes you
Speaker 1: end up at the same place, but then you know
Speaker 1: it's true because you've erased it and redrawn it in
Speaker 1: exactly the same way. Yeah. Absolutely, And you're right. It's
Speaker 1: so easy to get caught up in this echo chamber
Speaker 1: where it's just the same kind of media that you're
Speaker 1: consuming at all times. The minute I knew I really
Speaker 1: liked you is when I heard you speak on your
Speaker 1: podcast about how you feel about travel influencers, and that,
Speaker 1: to me is the prime example of an echo chamber
Speaker 1: within the travel industry, because these influencers are portraying a
Speaker 1: very very specific and inaccessible experience of travel that shows
Speaker 1: one side of a very very complicated experience, and it
Speaker 1: quite infuriates me right. Well, the classic insta scamma photo
Speaker 1: is the Maldives over water bungalow with set person or
Speaker 1: persons doing some activity, and people like that, and people
Speaker 1: like to live in the glossy world. But I think
Speaker 1: my job is to remind people that, yes, travel is
Speaker 1: glamorous and fabulous, and who doesn't love a hotel the
Speaker 1: fabulous result. But I need to know more than just
Speaker 1: the surface ship and travel doesn't want to do that.
Speaker 1: Travel is caught in an aspirational place, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to challenge us to get out of that. The problem
Speaker 1: is I sound preachy. The thing is like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound preachy, like I just want to build
Speaker 1: something better than me, something that's more than me. Right,
Speaker 1: you understand this, I totally understand. I think as soon
Speaker 1: as you share an opinion, you're right to be considered
Speaker 1: a preacher. No matter what you're talking about, no matter
Speaker 1: who is listening, there's always someone who will hear what
Speaker 1: you're saying as preaching because it goes against their own belief.
Speaker 1: This has been my experience. Well, I love to think
Speaker 1: that my opinion is wrong, so I love to like
Speaker 1: give my opinion and then be shown that my opinion
Speaker 1: was wrong. It's my favorite thing. My husband does it
Speaker 1: to me all the time. I'll say something and you'll
Speaker 1: be like, god, Daniel, have you really thought about this?
Speaker 1: This is such emotional crap. And he'll unpack it for
Speaker 1: me and I'll go, oh, yeah, my opinion is totally wrong. Great,
Speaker 1: thank you, And I ad just because maybe we spend
Speaker 1: too much of our time trying to tell our story
Speaker 1: opposed to receiving the story. And this is what I
Speaker 1: want to inspire people to travel, right, And I think
Speaker 1: you make a really good point, and this is something
Speaker 1: we've discussed on I'll packet before. Travel is about listening
Speaker 1: and learning, and while you're traveling, the best way to
Speaker 1: learn is by listening to the people around you, whether
Speaker 1: that's another traveler that you meet in a hostel, or
Speaker 1: a cab driver or someone who's sitting next to you
Speaker 1: on a bus. I've learned the most incredible things about
Speaker 1: countries that I've visited just by listening while I'm there.
Speaker 1: More so than what I can google before I find
Speaker 1: what I learned while I'm actually living, the experience is
Speaker 1: so much more insightful and interesting. I'm gonna pause this
Speaker 1: right here for a moment for our sponsors to weigh in,
Speaker 1: but do come back to hear more about where I've
Speaker 1: been scooting around this week. The time has come for
Speaker 1: more of everywhere and now back to Alpaca My Bags,
Speaker 1: the podcast from Canada. What is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: lessons you've learned whilst on the road? Um, One of
Speaker 1: the greatest things that I've learned traveling is that you
Speaker 1: can only prepare to be unprepared. And by that I
Speaker 1: mean you can never know what you will encounter, who
Speaker 1: you will encounter, what things will go wrong while you're traveling.
Speaker 1: And so I think I've learned, and it's through a
Speaker 1: number of experiences that have taught me that it's about
Speaker 1: your mental state and going into a trip or a
Speaker 1: place knowing that you have no clue what will happen.
Speaker 1: You can plan to no end, but plans change. I
Speaker 1: love that very quickly, about that feeling. I think about
Speaker 1: those moments even in like Bolivia, on a train, on
Speaker 1: a bus, on an alpaca. You know, I think like,
Speaker 1: what magic is here? Let me just see? And I
Speaker 1: do obviously plan stuff, but I find that when I
Speaker 1: stop the planning, all this stuff starts to happen, which
Speaker 1: you just can't foresee. I am so grateful that I
Speaker 1: have this in my life because I have friends in
Speaker 1: every city because I'm just open making friends. Come on,
Speaker 1: bring it and some of duds. It's true, Michael says
Speaker 1: to me, I have to, like, you know, weave through
Speaker 1: some of these crazy people you pick up along the way,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, like I mean, such wonderful
Speaker 1: humans that are willing to challenge me. This morning, I
Speaker 1: walked l on the trail up in west Chester and
Speaker 1: I meant the loveliest woman and we talked and I
Speaker 1: walked with her and she's looking after her son's dog
Speaker 1: and we just chatted and I gave her my number
Speaker 1: and she texted me early and she was like, what
Speaker 1: a delight, And I was like, ah, kiss meat. It's beautiful. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think this is why I fell in love with
Speaker 1: hostels so much. I know you have mentioned hostels, but
Speaker 1: I know, and it's funny because I don't financially need
Speaker 1: to stay in hostles anymore. I can't afford a hotel,
Speaker 1: but I often choose to stay in a hostel, and
Speaker 1: the reason is because I meet such incredible people. Some
Speaker 1: of the greatest friends that I have. I have met
Speaker 1: in a hostel and known for a brief amount of time,
Speaker 1: and we have continued to stay in touch over the years.
Speaker 1: And like you, I have friends all over the planet
Speaker 1: that I've known for a little snippet of time. We
Speaker 1: shared some beautiful moments together in a foreign city, and
Speaker 1: we continue to be close. That's so funny. My friend
Speaker 1: Maggie Castella is texting us right now. I'm free. Come
Speaker 1: where I am. We shall, we shall come to you shantly. Well,
Speaker 1: just to go back to the hostile thing? Should I
Speaker 1: admit this? I never stayed at all, you have not,
Speaker 1: so I guess I'll have to. Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: make sure you do. You and I we have a plan. Okay.
Speaker 1: I'll come stay at a hostel with you anyway you want, well,
Speaker 1: random city in the world, and I'll pick the hostel.
Speaker 1: I'll pick the city, you pick the hostel. I like
Speaker 1: that idea. I mean, as a travel right, I often
Speaker 1: talk about how one should do everything and not stay.
Speaker 1: No one's ever invited me to a hostel, so that's
Speaker 1: probably why I haven't been. Is your official invitation? Thank you?
Speaker 1: Am I getting one in the mail? Guess I can
Speaker 1: arrange that I feel like, um, I never say no,
Speaker 1: like cruise shiving okay, river rafting in the Amazon okay,
Speaker 1: and some of the stuff. When I tell Michael that
Speaker 1: I'm an to do that, He's like, you're insane. You're insane,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. I would never do that. You know, like
Speaker 1: ten days horse riding across the step of Mongolia s insanity.
Speaker 1: It's fabulous. Do you feel that you were like this
Speaker 1: always or is this something that you've become better at
Speaker 1: the more that you've traveled. I would like to think
Speaker 1: that I've always been like that, but the truth is
Speaker 1: that I probably have become better because you see that
Speaker 1: it works, so you keep wanting more. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: an addict, right Like, I'm a total addict, but I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. I try to change my addictional travel
Speaker 1: and turn it into something positive and show that there's
Speaker 1: a self care element here. What it really is is
Speaker 1: a desire to challenge myself because I want to. I
Speaker 1: want to be better in this world. I want to
Speaker 1: contribute more. I want to be able to make a change.
Speaker 1: I want to inspire people to get off the list
Speaker 1: and to think about travel as a way to find
Speaker 1: them else because it's free. Basically, you could travel to
Speaker 1: Prince Edward County an hour two hours from here and
Speaker 1: have the most magical time of your life. I've been
Speaker 1: to Drake on the Lake that's right here. Anyone can
Speaker 1: do that. You can hop on a train and go
Speaker 1: do it for basically no money. You can go camp
Speaker 1: out that like, I think that you could do it
Speaker 1: for a weekend for less than a hundred dollars if
Speaker 1: you can't doubt that, right, So, like, it's not about
Speaker 1: the money, it's about are you willing to go and
Speaker 1: do that uncover yourself. Yeah. A good example of that,
Speaker 1: I think is if we're going to talk specifically about Toronto.
Speaker 1: I have lived in Toronto for so many years and
Speaker 1: had always heard about this place. It's called the Scarborough
Speaker 1: Bluffs and it's very instagram able location actually because it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like Toronto. It has these beautiful white cliffs
Speaker 1: that overlook the lake and it truly looks like you
Speaker 1: are on the ocean. And I had heard about this
Speaker 1: place so often and it was always in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind that I should go. Because it takes
Speaker 1: an hour to get there on the subway, it's so
Speaker 1: easy to get there, so I had to really put
Speaker 1: effort into it. One day I thought like, twirl, I'm
Speaker 1: going to Scarborough Bluffs. And I told my partner tomorrow morning,
Speaker 1: we're getting up, we're not sleeping in, We're going to
Speaker 1: the subway and we're going to go to Scarborough Bluffs.
Speaker 1: And he was like, that sounds absurd. It's so far away.
Speaker 1: And I told him, Lucas like, it's an hour, it's
Speaker 1: not that far. We've never been. It looks incredible, it's
Speaker 1: right in our backyard. Let's go. And we made the
Speaker 1: journey and it was very long, and we did get
Speaker 1: lost along the way, but it cost us three dollars there,
Speaker 1: three dollars back, and it was well worth it. Wow.
Speaker 1: I guess who in Scarborough Bluffs. Maggie, Maggie Casilla. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny, like she's become a sort of my filt
Speaker 1: of Canada. Is her like an open minded, hysterically funny human.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, that's what the Canadians are like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like so funny and polite and lovely.
Speaker 1: It's true, but I will say it's a stereo type.
Speaker 1: I get it, it is, but it's also I'll admit
Speaker 1: I find it problematic sometimes because often when I travel,
Speaker 1: people say to me, oh, you're from Canada. Canada is
Speaker 1: so amazing, you have an amazing prime minister, you are
Speaker 1: so great to people, You're so open minded. But the
Speaker 1: reality is that it is true, especially in cities, but
Speaker 1: we do have our issues. So it almost feels like
Speaker 1: people they're washing it away, thinking like they are no issues,
Speaker 1: look at trade. It's so that they glorify. I think
Speaker 1: that Canada is often glorified, and I think it could
Speaker 1: be because in comparison to what's happening south of US,
Speaker 1: we do look really great. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we don't have immigration problems here as well problems. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've done it so much better than most other countries,
Speaker 1: but they are still problems. I mean, from the outside in,
Speaker 1: it does feel like I was leaving gilly Head this
Speaker 1: morning and I was reading something fascinating this morning. It
Speaker 1: was like, maybe we were all too busy thinking we
Speaker 1: are handmaids when we are actually aunts. Fuck that flawed me.
Speaker 1: I nearly lost my balance when I read that in
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. It was the review of Margaret Atwood's
Speaker 1: new book I'm gonna have to sit with that for
Speaker 1: a little bit to think about it. So I haven't
Speaker 1: really processed all of that, but it did feel very
Speaker 1: good to uncover that, to stop thinking about that. And
Speaker 1: of course at that moment, it was the perfect moment
Speaker 1: to read it because I was flying from gilly Head
Speaker 1: into Canada and I was wondering about immigration and how
Speaker 1: this is not new. What's happening at the border, the
Speaker 1: southern border of America is not new. It's happened for centuries,
Speaker 1: and it opened in Asia, happen in Europe, happen Africa
Speaker 1: to African tribes. It's human nature. So instead of trying
Speaker 1: to fight human nature, we have to find a way. Two.
Speaker 1: I don't know what are we supposed to do. We're
Speaker 1: supposed to bring awareness to it. So should we go
Speaker 1: travel to the board and see bring awareness to it,
Speaker 1: make that a travel destination. I don't know. I can't tell,
Speaker 1: but to me, it's like I would ratherther go and
Speaker 1: see and understand what's happening then have the media tell
Speaker 1: me like AOC went down there and she spent time
Speaker 1: there and they vilified her, and I think she's a congresswoman.
Speaker 1: She should go down there. I can't understand well. And
Speaker 1: you raise a good point, because it's quite okay for
Speaker 1: people to travel to other countries and visit refugee camps
Speaker 1: or to visit slums in India, So why aren't we
Speaker 1: visiting places in our own country that are dark. I
Speaker 1: think that it says a lot that we're willing to
Speaker 1: go somewhere else on the planet and watch as an outsider,
Speaker 1: because it speaks to our complicity and our unwillingness us
Speaker 1: to examine ourselves and what's happening at home. Fuck. I
Speaker 1: think we've uncovered something that's kind of hard to even
Speaker 1: fully chew on. Because if you and I go to
Speaker 1: the border and we just work on some empathy at
Speaker 1: the border, maybe that makes a difference. Maybe then appeals
Speaker 1: on a greater level, because I'm not going there in
Speaker 1: a political way. I mean, in some ways everything is political.
Speaker 1: But I think that you and I, as travelers, should
Speaker 1: instead of insta scamming and being like, hey, look at
Speaker 1: us in a heart shaped swan bed floating above like
Speaker 1: doing a yoga pose on top of the roof of
Speaker 1: a over the water bungalow in the Maldives, maybe we
Speaker 1: should go to the border and be like, hey, like,
Speaker 1: let's sit up like a burning man at the border.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure someone's going to tell me this is offensive,
Speaker 1: but I want to know why it's offensive, and then
Speaker 1: I want to tweak this and figure it out and
Speaker 1: make it a way that's not offensive and does actually help.
Speaker 1: Does that seem okay? It seems okay to me, And
Speaker 1: I think that the way to activate it into something
Speaker 1: that can actually promote changes to use it to amplify
Speaker 1: a message, amplify a message about what is actually happening there,
Speaker 1: because we do rely on media outlets, and let's be frank,
Speaker 1: they're not that reliable. And so I think that when
Speaker 1: people receive a message from someone like you and I
Speaker 1: who aren't directly associated with like Fox or CBC News,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more reliable. People are more willing to
Speaker 1: accept that message than they are from a large newshouse.
Speaker 1: I would say. So is the tricky part of this
Speaker 1: that we need a celebrity to come with us because
Speaker 1: they have voice, and they have audience and they have numbers.
Speaker 1: It's not really disgusting. And here's the thing. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about an experience I had in India. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see. You've seen the movie Slumtop Millionaire. I think
Speaker 1: everyone has. It was shot in a particular slum in Mumbai,
Speaker 1: and my partner and I really wanted to see it,
Speaker 1: and we talked it over and we understood that there
Speaker 1: was a problematic element to this, that it was in
Speaker 1: a way poverty tourism. That we wanted to just see
Speaker 1: how bad the slum was. And I went into it
Speaker 1: assuming that it would be really bad. When we got
Speaker 1: to the slum, it wasn't at all what we expected.
Speaker 1: It was really like a community and it completely shattered
Speaker 1: everything we had assumed that the sum would be beautiful,
Speaker 1: But we didn't take pictures, We didn't share that we
Speaker 1: have been there. We accepted the experiences something that was
Speaker 1: for us to learn through. We didn't use it to
Speaker 1: promote ourselves as like, oh look at us, like we've
Speaker 1: gone to check out the slum that everyone says it
Speaker 1: is dangerous, that you shouldn't go too. We use the
Speaker 1: experience just to prove to ourselves that as hard as
Speaker 1: we try not to go into travel experiences with assumptions
Speaker 1: or stereotypes in mind, it's impossible not to because we're
Speaker 1: constantly influenced like just by influencers on Instagram, but also
Speaker 1: about like every form of media that we're exposed to
Speaker 1: is influencing the way that we feel about something. And
Speaker 1: so the only real way to know was to go
Speaker 1: to the slum and see it for ourselves. And so
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that that experience was fulfilling in
Speaker 1: that it changed how I felt and what I knew
Speaker 1: about India and about that slum and about what it
Speaker 1: means to grow up in the slum or to live
Speaker 1: in the slum. And that was very valuable to me.
Speaker 1: I um I could spend the rest of the day
Speaker 1: just talking to you and and kind of uncovering the stuff,
Speaker 1: which I I love because I feel like I don't
Speaker 1: have the answers. You and I are figuring the stuff out,
Speaker 1: like a thing about the border. I think we should
Speaker 1: brainstorm this, figure this out, and let our listeners help
Speaker 1: us figure this out, because half my listeners will be
Speaker 1: pissed that I even say something like this, and the
Speaker 1: other half will be like, we have ideas, this is great,
Speaker 1: So okay, let me pursue off and let me throw you.
Speaker 1: But somewhere in that we'll figure this out and travel
Speaker 1: is that it's not perfect and you can't get it
Speaker 1: right every time, because the point is that in that
Speaker 1: mess you aiding yourself to be a better human and
Speaker 1: you're finding not only your own humanity, but humanity and others.
Speaker 1: That's the point. That's why I got on the plane
Speaker 1: this morning to come here. Absolutely, from Gilliad to Canada.
Speaker 1: The world will continue. Do you know they shoot it
Speaker 1: here in Toronto, right under his eye. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for spending your Saturday afternoon with me. This is wonderful.
Speaker 1: It was such a pleasure. If anybody would like to
Speaker 1: get your podcast, please tell them where to go. The
Speaker 1: podcast is called I'll Pack My Bag. You can find
Speaker 1: it wherever you listen to your podcast, so that's Spotify, Google,
Speaker 1: literally anywhere. And we also have a website which is
Speaker 1: www dot I'll Pack in my Banks dot c A.
Speaker 1: Thanks for hanging out. Connect with us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: everywhere pond, Instagram, at Everywhere podcast, or on the website
Speaker 1: at everywhere podcast dot com. I'm Daniel Scheffler. I'll be
Speaker 1: seeing you everywhere